He didn’t wait for Kol to lead. He knew every inch of this place—the chill that seeped from the concrete and the way sound echoed with a hollow, final quality. This was where order was enforced, where consequences took solid, unyielding form.
Winslet walked beside him, her steps measured and sure. He felt her simmering fury through the mate bond, hot and clean, eclipsing the earlier fear. It was the rage of someone who’d been made a victim and was determined never to be one again. She took in the sterile corridors and the heavy doors, her green eyes missing nothing. She didn’t shrink from the oppressive atmosphere, her shoulders squared against it.
Good. Let her feel her own strength.
Viktor’s scent hit him fully as they approached the final corridor—musk, aggression, and the coppery hint of dried blood. Korrak’s muscles coiled as the visceral memory of the man’s hands on his mate resurfaced. The urge to finish what he’d started was a drumbeat in his blood.
Viktor sat on a concrete bench in the center of a barred cell. Restraints circled his wrists, but his posture was all arrogant alertness. A livid bruise, a perfect imprint of teeth, mottled the side of his neck—a polar bear’s signature, a warning left unfulfilled. His cold gray eyes tracked them, landing first on Korrak with a flicker of wary hatred, then sliding to Winslet.
The smirk that touched his lips was an obscenity.
Korrak stopped outside the bars. He let the weight of his presence fill the space, his Alpha authority radiating from him like heat from a forge.
“You were warned to leave my territory,” Korrak said, his voice a controlled growl. “But you returned. And you laid hands on someone under my protection. You now exist at my discretion.”
Viktor’s smirk didn’t waver. “You got lucky. Found the scent before the trail went cold. Luck runs out though.”
His gaze drifted back to Winslet, lingering with an intimate familiarity that made Korrak’s vision tint red. Viktor’s nostrils flared subtly. The bastard could scent it—the new, fragile tether between them. He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound.
“Oh, this is rich. The Alpha’s finally found his mate. Bracken’s going to love this. Taking what’s yours.”
His polar bear raged against Korrak’s restraint, demanding blood. But he breathed through the primal fury, keeping it caged. He would not give Viktor the show he wanted. Not with Winslet watching at least.
Winslet had gone still beside him. Korrak felt her focus, sharp as a scalpel, analyzing Viktor’s every twitch and every inflection. She wasn’t cowering. She was studying.
“If Bracken is so determined to have me, why send you? Why not come himself?” Her voice was calm, devoid of any emotion that Viktor could use as a weapon. It was the tone of a logistics coordinator assessing a faulty plan.
Viktor’s smile faltered, thrown by her lack of reaction. He recovered with a sneer. “This was just the opening move. Besides, you were already claimed by him. That doesn’t expire just because you ran away.”
Claimed.The word was a brand, a lie that sizzled against Korrak’s soul.
She was never his. She was always mine. Fate wrote it before that bastard ever saw her.
Winslet didn’t flinch. “How many men is he willing to waste? How many contingencies does he have left?”
Viktor laughed then, a low, grating sound. “You have no idea what’s already in motion. You think this frozen wasteland protects you? It just makes the hunt more interesting. Bracken doesn’t lose what belongs to him. He’ll burn this territory to the ground to prove it.”
Korrak memorized the cadence, the specific phrasing.Already in motion. Burn this territory to the ground.Threats were blueprints. Arrogance always revealed the weak points.
Korrak took a single, deliberate step back from the bars. The movement cut through Viktor’s smug monologue like a blade through fog. The man had said enough. More than enough. Every boast, every threat, was a piece of intelligence Korrak’s mind was already slotting into a grim mosaic.
He turned his head a fraction, his gaze finding Kol’s across the corridor. No words were needed. A lifetime of understanding passed in that look.
End it.
His only regret was a hot, private coal in his gut—that he wouldn’t be the one to feel Viktor’s neck snap. That he wouldn’t personally repay the man for every second of fear he’d etched into Winslet’s life, for stealing her peace and cornering her freedom. Justice would be served, but the polar bear within him snarled, unsatisfied, craving the visceral finality of its own claws.
Viktor seemed to sense what was coming. His smirk turned into a grimace of defiance. “Your life is already over, sweetheart,” he spat, his eyes locking on Winslet. “And your precious Alpha’s. This place? It’s temporary. Bracken is patient when he needs to be.”
The words hung in the chilled air, toxic and lingering. Korrak kept his face an impassive mask, but inside, the polar bear raged against its cage.
Kol moved with silent efficiency, unlocking the cell. The metallic clang was a period at the end of a sentence. He gripped Viktor’s arm, his expression unreadable. Viktor didn’t struggle as he was led away down the opposite corridor. He walked to his fate with the grim acceptance of a soldier who knew his time had come.
Korrak’s hand found Winslet’s. Her fingers were cold, but they curled around his with a strength that steadied him. He didn’t speak. He simply turned, leading her back the way they came, away from the echo of Viktor’s voice and toward the clean, brutal honesty of the Arctic night.
Outside, the wind greeted them like a slap. It scoured the scent of confinement and hatred from Korrak’s lungs, replacing it with ice and endless space. Winslet inhaled deeply beside him, her breath frosting in the moonlight. He could feel the tension thrumming through her grip, a live wire of adrenaline and resolve.
“You were formidable in there,” he said softly. “You stood your ground.”
